For those who have not seen it previously, welcome to Martyr Square, in Praag. It’s hard to get in one screenshot, but it’s about the largest single space in Praag, and is almost slap bang in the middle of the zone slap bang in the middle of Tier 4. For all you lore/role-playing fans. not only is it a city in Kislev, but at times it felt like battling in a medieval Leningrad. Cool.

I took this picture when it was “quiet”. I could have taken it when there was about 300 people fighting hard, with bodies flying everywhere, but there will no doubt be plenty of those on the interwebnet soon enough.

No, I wanted to check out what it was like on a Sunday morning. This Sunday happened to be just before the end of Closed Beta, and Order must have been busy little beavers overnight, because every Tier 4 zone clear to the Inevitable City had been locked for Order.

Now that was rare enough as it was.

But what surprised me was to discover that my sneaking suspicion was right; there were people fighting at Martyr’s Square.

Now, I’m not going to start shouting “Njubs!” in my best “leet speek” (that’s about all the “leet speek” I know. “Njubs”, “leet” and “speek”. Someone should shout “Get with the times, grand-dad!” at me. In “leet speek”, of course) at them. They’re PvPing, they’re having fun, and they’re ideally placed when the front makes it’s way back to Praag. It has become *the* place to go if you can’t find RvR anywhere else.

Personally, I’d want to follow the front, be it attacking or defending where appropriate. But I do think it’s entertaining that whilst the marketing men might be wrong that “War is everywhere!”, it’s comforting to know that it will always be at Martyr Square.

After a long discussion with my LotRO guildmates over the female sense of direction yesterday, it particularly pleased me when a member of my WAR guild pointed me at this remarkable Atlas of WAR.

I like maps, I especially like that you can turn off all the points of interest so if you don’t want things spoiled other than the basic map overview you can have that too. I love that they have scenario maps too – overall it’s really useful and I’ve added it to our ‘tools’ category.

Starting what might become a regular insight into our lives and conversations, I bring you a summary of some of our IM chats over the past couple of weeks. It’s only from two separate days, so hopefully in the future there will be more diversity!

(6:16:32 AM) Spinks: btw, can you talk to tupp when you come down and explain that pillows are not for cats(6:16:46 AM) Arbitrary:but but.. they are!(6:17:02 AM) Spinks: bad influence!

(7:02:16 AM) Arbitrary: might have to make level 31 chars, strip them and screenshot their breasts. For sunday, ofc.(7:03:37 AM) Spinks: I have a screenie of my level 1 engineer with her bodice if that helps(7:04:23 AM) Arbitrary:I have that one I think, but if I do 1 at level 1 – I need to do them all at that (7:06:26 AM) Spinks: depends if you want to do a proper comparison or just ‘hey, look at these boobs!’ 🙂

(8:17:37 AM) Spinks:Can you check mamma mia post?(8:21:58 AM) Arbitrary: I just wonder if the title fully suits it(8:22:59 AM) Arbitrary: From ABBA to WAR?(8:23:06 AM) Spinks: Haha, I like that one(8:23:17 AM) Arbitrary:I feel bad picking on the title, tbh 🙂(8:23:50 AM) Arbitrary:*goes back to screenshotting breasts*

(9:38:18 AM) Arbitrary: Ha ha, I was originally going to call it ‘final days of freedom’ 🙂 You were just pondering the trez vs freebies ;p(9:39:16 AM) Hawley: I thought that was a lovely point to raise. I am still wondering which is better. The warm glow of epixxx, or the warming sensation in my tummy that only a blagged t-shirt can provide…(9:39:42 AM) Arbitrary: best would be a FREE bit of trez, ofc(9:39:56 AM) Hawley: Or a Trez T-shirt?(9:40:29 AM) Arbitrary: I would love a T-shirt that said ‘Broken armour, repairs into the following item – 1 T -shirt’

(10:07:47 AM) Hawley:I worked there for three years on commute, so it’s not a bad place, and not scary.(10:08:01 AM) Arbitrary: not TOO scary 🙂 Everywhere is scary(10:08:59 AM) Hawley: Nah, as long as you know where *not* to go…(10:09:16 AM) Arbitrary:out the house!

(6:25:51 AM) Arbitrary: I didn’t even look at macros in WAR. I guess I will. Oh, you’ll be amused.. I found a thread whining that AM’s were better healers than RPs 🙂(6:26:16 AM) Arbitrary: Have therefore decided all number crunching is horrible and players whine a lot!(6:26:26 AM) Spinks: I really think no one honestly knows. But everyone feels a bit defensive.(6:26:40 AM) Arbitrary: yeah, I can see why, but there’s so many variables with tactics and masteries(6:26:41 AM) Spinks: So much whining that RPs do more damage though. But all based on theory.

(6:30:46 AM) Spinks: One of the big difficulties with comparisons is figuring out how to work the mechanic in too.(6:31:07 AM) Spinks: I do think that AM damage isn’t really high enough. The dps tree felt like the most useless to me.(6:31:12 AM) Arbitrary:yeah, I just don’t like the comparisons. To me the only thing we need to know about a healing class is – can they solo heal a group

(9:32:34 AM) Arbitrary: why do people even have to consider ‘hardest/easiest classes to play’ – just the thread title depresses me(9:33:19 AM) Arbitrary:yay RP is easy apparently 🙂(9:33:25 AM) Spinks: :p(9:33:55 AM) Spinks: Actually, I think I prefer that to ‘which is the best healer’. Cos if you have a friend or partner who wants to play you might want to know which the easier classes are(9:34:12 AM) Spinks: (And as we all know, the best healer is the one who actually heals you !)

(9:36:10 AM) Arbitrary:Well, just read a thread that said AM and RP are best together 🙂(9:36:23 AM) Spinks: works for me

(10:36:33 AM) Spinks:http://www.consupport.com/genconuk2008/eagleheights.asp(10:36:47 AM) Spinks: is it bad if I want my photo taken with a bird of prey?(10:36:59 AM) Arbitrary: No!(10:37:07 AM) Arbitrary: it’s imperative(10:37:18 AM) Spinks:Thats the best thing EVER! I love falcons, but will need a camera

Just so you all know, I’m just having a lovely brew, and having a cogitate about what to do in the open beta phase.

Should I just use Open Beta as a dry run for release? Should I create a Warrior Priest and level up?

Should I create a class I wouldn’t normally have, such as an Ironbreaker, and see how other classes play?

Or should I ignore Order completely, and play Destruction for a week?

All three have their benefits, and their penalties.

Playing a Warrior Priest means I’ll be playing the early levels for a third time at release, and maybe that’s one time too many for it to be classed as fun. But it does mean I’ll have practiced it enough to get out of the early levels with a minimum of fuss and bother, hopefully meaning I can out-pace the masses through the starter areas…

Playing Destruction will mean I can try out that Shaman I’ve had my eye on (skull as hat!), or follow a slinky, well-formed Witch Elf bottom around for a week (for testing purposes only, of course), but also means that the “mystique” of my enemies will be lessened. I will understand a little more about their skills, quests, and items. It will make them less… alien.

So I think I’m going to choose what’s in the box. I shall hold an audition of sorts, for my initial alts. I generally try and get two or three characters up to maximum level, and usually have a number of other alts at varying levels. I find it gives me more options regarding grouping up and doing stuff in game.

I already know that I want a Warrior Priest, an Engineer, and an Archmage. So now is the time to find out what else is cool. I’m thinking Witch Hunter (because I’m shallow, and they look great), and Swordmaster (because I do, at times, enjoy tanking, and the Swordmaster seems to have a cool mechanic).

Brew’s over. Time to get the kettle on again. God bless tea! But hey, if anyone has a reason to try another class out, just shout it out… 😉

We spent a while in the early days of the blog pondering when Play.com would send out their CE pre-order codes, and kind of wishing we’d gone to an HMV store and picked up the pre-order box there.

It now seems that HMV are having issues with the way they handled the pre-order programme. Right from the start people had conflicting reports about whether HMV staff were asking for their details to reserve them a copy of the Collector’s Edition when it came into the store. Some were being asked, some weren’t.

Now, over at Freddyshouse, there’s a worrying thread which goes into quite a few details of people being told by various sources at HMV that they might not have enough CEs to cover the pre-orders they took. As they were haphazard about recording people’s details – this could be of major concern to people who went this route to the CE pre-order.

Our advice:

Check with the manager at the HMV store where you bought your pre-order box

The Economist reckons that Google’s Lively was a flop. I know I haven’t been back to it after the first excitement of playing with virtual lava lamps, there are easier ways to chat. Bruce Everiss also comments on this and discusses other ways Google could extend its business model.

The sixth guild highlights is now up on the GOA site and discusses keep taking, it also highlights the Humberton Blackguard, another guild we know of from our Dark Age of Camelot time.

It may not have escaped your notice this week that there’s some small controversy about Mythic not crediting developers that no longer work for them. The complaint was made anonymously by an ex-Mythic developer that had put in some work on Warhammer Online. The International Games Developers Association call this ‘disrespectful’. Mark Jacobs spoke to MTV Multiplayer and had the following to say:

If you really think that we’re doing something wrong, at least have the balls to stand up and go ‘Hi, my name is so-and-so…[Leaving the person out of the credits] could be a mistake. I’m not saying it’s not happening. I just don’t know who the heck this person is. So come out, stop hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and the legal shield of ‘I’m going to sue EA.’

Scott over at the Broken Toys blog adds that it’s not him. Apparently he’s been asked a lot!

Kotaku points out some of the vagaries of multi-million dollar AI systems. If you happen to be shopping in a Target (US store) and you wanted to buy World of Warcraft but find they’ve sold out, you’ll apparently be pointed to Paws & Claws Pet Vet as an alternative!

Blogger xntrek writes an open letter to Mythic from Gamenesty International about the end of the closed beta.

Dev blogs – Justin Webb has posted a bunch of vids from Leipzig on his blog. Go watch them; WAR tattoos, Leipzig ladies, T-shirt delivery (did I mention I love free T-shirts!?) and Warhammer Online winning the Best Online Game title. Iain C also posts about Leipzig and mentions T -shirts all too teasingly – check out his pics from the event – they’re really good. And Josh says something about PAX, something about it being the last time WAR gets shown off before the launch.. hrrm, forgetting Games Day UK, obviously but I’ll forgive him. Oh look, Jeff Hickman said the same at the start of his exclusive PAX blogs for Ten Ton Hammer. As if it’s not bad enough that the CE headstart starts during Games Day UK!

Massively also have been talking to Mythic at PAX about the content of the next patch with lots of new features for the open beta (auction houses, graphical improvements, pathing fixes etc). They’re planning to breadcrumb their interview over several articles as per usual so keep checking back.

Mark Jacobs stops by Warhammer Alliance to give an update on the work they’re doing post-preview weekend.